


Juliet

by kaehdci



Series: Infected [2]
Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Angst, F/M, Plague, Romance, Tragic Romance, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:21:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 4,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27982980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaehdci/pseuds/kaehdci
Summary: When the infection broke out, I was working in the cafe. There were only a few customers in there at the time. When the infection broke out, a car hit a lamp-post in front of the building, and someone who should have been dead climbed out. When the infection broke out, I didn't think I was going to survive. I have no regrets other than that today - the day the infection broke out - is the day I met Minseok.
Relationships: Kim Minseok | Xiumin/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Infected [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2143827
Kudos: 2





	1. Dying

**Author's Note:**

> (NOTE: this story runs concurrently with 'Monsters' as part of the same incident, but is standalone)

I die today. In the grand scheme of things, my death is unimportant. I know that I won't be missed by many for very long, especially since millions of others die today too, but today is the day I finally lose my grip on reality and as I lie here, on the cold floor of the storeroom in the coffee shop where I work, I mourn for myself and the life I never got to live. The only regret I really have is that I met him today, of all days. If I had met him at any other time – when we were younger, when I was at university, when he was famous, when he was in the military... any other time, and we could have had more moments like the one we had today. But we met today, and I die today, so I regret that I met him at all. I can hear him crying, at least. He'll miss me. That is something.


	2. 11 Hours Earlier

Whoever they were, it was causing a bit of a commotion in the coffee shop. There were two of them, in the booth by the window. I vaguely recognised them, but I didn't know who they were. But then, I had just recently moved to back to Korea from overseas. Areum told me that they were famous singers. They didn't look like the idol singers I was familiar with from the ads on the subway or the billboards around the city. Both of them had black hair, for one thing, and were a little older. They just looked like normal Korean men, albeit on the striking side of handsome. I didn't trust Areum to walk their coffees over to the table, she was far too excited. She would probably spill it all over them and then we would be that place that got sued by a record company for damaging their artists. They both smiled at me when I approached the table. The americano was for the one on the left with the nice eyes. He looked directly at me when I served him, and it was like being stripped. I felt my cheeks get hot. The one with the glasses took his cappuccino from my tray with a quiet 'thank you', his deep voice a jarring contrast to his babyface. I mumbled something about cream and sugar and walked away quickly. Areum smirked at me when I came back to the counter, red-faced.


	3. 10 and a half hours earlier

A car smashed into a lamppost outside the café. The first screams had already started by then, coming from down the street. There were only six people in the café: Areum and I behind the counter, the two singers, and an elderly couple who came in at the start of every day and stayed for hours. No one looked up at the screams, but everyone jumped when the car ploughed into the post. The windscreen shattered, and the driver was thrown through it. The singer with the nice eyes stood up and made to run outside.

"Call an ambulance!" he shouted to nobody in particular. I picked up the phone beside the till and dialled 119. There was no answer. It didn't ring-out, the line was just busy. I tried again but it was still busy. The singer was at the door then and was about to heave it open, but the car burst into flames in front of us. It was lucky, that. He probably would have checked for a pulse and died there and then. Areum had pulled out her cellphone to try 119 too but was staring at her screen.

"Xiumin-oppa don't go out there," she shouted at the singer, waving her phone. "Something bad is happening."


	4. 8 Hours Earlier

I checked the doors again. Still locked. No-one had left, and no one had come in. I lowered the metal shutters early, so the few desperate people who had tried to get in couldn't break the giant windows and doom everyone including themselves. The windows in the doors were starting to bother me, though, and I cast about for something I could use to cover them.

"No one knows we're in here," said the deep-voiced singer from behind me. Do Kyungsoo, he'd introduced himself as. I looked around anyway. "Someone might see us moving around. Or try to break in."

"No one's out there anymore," he said gently even though that was blatantly untrue. There were hundreds of people on the street, wandering aimlessly, their eyes covered in a milky film. The question, I supposed, was whether or not we thought of those people as people anymore. When the car crash victim had pulled himself through his broken windscreen, his intestines clearly exposed and leaking all kinds of fluid, we had realised that something... extra was happening. Unconsciously, my eyes went to the crashed car again. What if he had come through the window? Kyungsoo must have seen my rising panic because he placed what he probably thought was a reassuring hand on my shoulder. I was too anxious for comfort, though. And I wasn't Areum; he couldn't silence me with a look. The other one, though... Xiumin- Kim Minseok... he was lounging on one of the chairs by the shuttered window, watching me and Kyungsoo. He mouth quirked up in a small smile when he caught my eye and I had to look away. I shook my head; now wasn't the time to get distracted. Kyungsoo withdrew his hand.


	5. 7 and a half hours earlier

I decided to busy myself making coffee for everyone. If I had known that we would be without electricity within a couple of hours, I think I probably would have cooked some food. But I didn't know, so I asked everyone what they wanted. The elderly couple wanted another pot of the same tea they ordered every day. Areum was lying down on the banquette by the window and said she didn't want anything, so I told her I would make her one of the strawberry ice drinks. Kyungsoo said he would drink another cappuccino, and Minseok – instead of answering me – asked if he could help. I couldn't think of a good reason to say no except that being around him was making me think inappropriate thoughts, so I didn't say anything and let him follow me back to the counter. He knew how to use a machine like ours. He chatted to me about how he had bought an expensive machine for his house, but he always ended up using a Nespresso because it was quicker. I could relate; I made coffee for a living and I drank instant at home. He chuckled at that. He had a nice laugh. It came from deep in his chest and kind of puttered out. It made me smile.

He liked making coffee, he said. He ground the beans while he talked and pressed them into the portafilter.

"I'm sorry, did you want to do this?" he asked, realising that I was doing nothing but watching him work. I declined. I made coffee all day, it was nice to watch someone else do it for a change. I made up the pot of tea and the strawberry shake instead.

"Do you like working here?" he asked me, as he dumped espresso into a cup for Kyungsoo and started steaming milk. I shrugged but my indifference to this job must have shown because he grinned, and I laughed, and then he laughed again. He had a beautiful smile. It took over his whole face, crinkling around his lovely eyes. It was infectious. It was impossible not to stare and when we made eye-contact, it held. His milk started screaming, it was done. He didn't notice for a second and then he did because it was rising fast in the jug and he had to jump back, and milk went everywhere. He started to swear loudly at the machine, but he was smiling.


	6. 6 hours earlier

The electricity cut out. The noise on the street had started to die down and we saw fewer survivors. I sat in the booth by the window, watching the Infected wander on the street outside. That was what the news called them. Infected. I still had charge on my phone then. The news said it was global. The news had stopped updating hours ago.

"Maybe we should go out and see what happened," Kyungsoo said to Minseok. "We're near the company." I glanced up and saw that they were looking through the glass in the door.

"Don't," I said. "It can't be safe."

"But we can't stay here," Kyungsoo said. "What if we can get help? The police, the army must be doing something..." he trailed off. He can't be looking at the same street as I was and think there was much hope of an early rescue. A building on the next block was burning, had been burning for hours.

"What do you think you'll find at your company but more Infected...more zombies?" I asked, exasperated. I wanted them to stay. I didn't care that I was trying to sap their optimism to keep them here. If they left, it was just me and Areum and the old couple. Areum was useless with panic. The old couple were asleep. That's what I thought, anyway, but at that moment, the old man stood up then and announced that they were going home. Minseok walked over and spoke to them quietly. They knew what was going on. Everyone in the room did. They were insisting, though. They would be more comfortable at home, and they lived nearby.

"I'll go with them, make sure they get home safe," said Minseok.

"No," I said at the same time as Kyungsoo, and we glanced at each other. Why was I objecting? Kyungsoo gave me a barely perceptible nod like he knew why.

"I'll go," said Kyungsoo. "I want to see if there's anyone at the company anyway."

"I'll go too," said Minseok, but without much conviction. Kyungsoo shook his head and said it was fine. There was no point in both of them being at risk. Minseok was going to stay, Kyungsoo would go with the couple and find out if there was anyone in the company building or nearby who could help. Areum stood up quickly, snapping out of her fugue.

"I'll go with you, oppa" she said, racing into the back room to grab her jacket.


	7. 5 hours earlier

"I feel useless," I said to Minseok. "Maybe we should have gone too. We're doing nothing here."

"We're staying safe," said Minseok, but without much conviction. I was starting to feel stuffy in my uniform. My street clothes were in the storeroom at the back, in my locker.

"I'm going to change," I said. "If we have to run or move anywhere fast, I don't want to be trapped in my work dress." I stood up. Minseok looked me up and down and I resisted the urge to cover myself. Something about the way he did that made me feel naked.

"Your dress is pretty," he said with a small smile. "I like the blue."

I wrapped my arms around my waist and muttered something about the owner being old fashioned, that she didn't like the female employees wearing pants, but it was annoying because the dress was cold in the winter. He raised an eyebrow at me and shrugged. TMI, I realised. I walked off quickly towards the storeroom.

"I'll make something to drink," he called after me, "with the ice in the freezer?" I just waved over my shoulder and didn't answer. I didn't want to think about him with ice-cubes in his hands when I was about to take off all my clothes. I supposed that it was my luck to be trapped with someone who distracted me this much from the global catastrophe happening around us.

When I came out of the storeroom, he had made something that looked like milkshakes with the cream and milk in the fridge and had mixed up some of the instant coffee. They looked pretty, swirled up in the clear plastic containers. He handed one to me.

"I don't know if it's nice, I've never made something like this before," he said, sheepishly. He looked so proud of himself, though, and I decided that even if the coffee tasted terrible, I would drink every bit of it anyway. Thankfully, it tasted fine.

"They should have been back by now," I said, looking out towards the street. Minseok came over to stand next to me. A woman with milky eyes staggered past, vomit staining the front of her white dress.

"Kyungsoo-ah will be fine," Minseok said, more to himself than to me. Even so, he nudged my shoulder with his so that we were leaning against each other. I looked sidelong at him. His features were so fine he looked like he was wearing eyeliner. His mouth in profile was a perfect pout. I wondered what his voice was like when he sang. I felt intensely sad in that moment that I didn't know his music.

"What were you doing here, today?" I asked. I didn't mean to be nosy I was just trying to get him to think about something else. My own mind was starting to wander towards my family. The woman in the white dress looked like my sister.

Minseok smiled sadly.

"We were just having coffee," he said. "The company gets busy sometimes, we were just looking for a change of scenery."

"You're close? With Kyungsoo?"

"Yes," he said, anxiety making his voice shake. "We're close. You were right. They should be back by now."


	8. 4 hours earlier

When Kyungsoo came back, Areum wasn't with him. His face was ashen. He was agitated and wouldn't sit down. Minseok held his shoulders and tried to get him to talk, but Kyungsoo wouldn't make eye-contact.

"What happened?" I asked gently, but he just shook his head. Minseok steered him over to a chair and I brought him some water, but he didn't look at us.

"Kyungsoo-ssi, where's Areum?" I crouched down in front of him and took his hand. He glanced down at me. His eyes had a faraway look. "It's worse than... it's so bad." He leaned forward, his head in his hands. I glanced up at Minseok; he looked as lost as I felt. He put his arms around his friend when Kyungsoo started to cry. I left them and went to the door, opening it and looking out onto the street. There were bodies out there, but I couldn't look at them right now. There were people, but they didn't notice me. Their eyes were filmed over, and they were wandering blindly around, groping at cars and lampposts and each other. I stepped out onto the street and shouted for Areum. A sharp yank on my wrist and then I was back in the coffee shop, Kyungsoo's tearstained face glaring at me. His grip tightened.

"Don't go out there," he said through gritted teeth. Minseok gently prised his hand from my wrist.

"What is it?" he asked his friend. Kyungsoo looked around wildly.

"She's dead," he said. "Everyone is dead. They're walking but they're not there. I saw..." he wandered back to the door and shut it firmly and then walked in circles around us. "We brought the grandparents' to their home and there was someone outside on the street, and your friend, she tried to help them but she just fell down and she threw up and the grandmother tried to help her but she collapsed too, and then they were all on the ground but their eyes turned white, and then your friend, she started to move like the man in the car-" he was rambling. Some of it was making sense but more of it wasn't. Minseok drew him into a hug and held him for a moment, worried eyes meeting mine over Kyungsoo's shoulder.


	9. 3 hours earlier

Kyungsoo was asleep. Or, he was lying down and his eyes were closed at least. Minseok was watching him and the street from the booth by the window, regarding both with equal anxiety. I was starting to spiral a bit. We hadn't seen anyone who wasn't Infected in hours, and I hadn't realised I had been hoping for Kyungsoo to come through with some answers for us until he came back like he did. I caught myself staring at the water dripping from the slightly broken tap behind the counter for about ten minutes and decided to go try to calm myself down in the dark. I went into the storeroom and shut the door. I lay down on the floor. It was hard and cold. I sat cross-legged and shut my eyes, but I couldn't unsee the death that had piled up around the coffee shop. I stood up and paced a bit and was about to go back out because I wasn't feeling any calmer when a soft tap on the door startled me.

"Are you okay?" Minseok asked, opening it slightly and letting some of the weak light from outside spill in. It was getting towards evening; it would be dark outside soon too.

"I'm okay," I said. "I just needed a little time. To calm down."

"Okay," he said, and I thought he was going to leave but he came inside and shut the door. I could barely make out his outline in the fraction of light that was spilling in from around the doorframe. "I'm sorry about your friend."

"Me too."

"It's crazy," he whispered. "Everything is crazy."

"Yeah, it's... yeah." Why were we whispering? Because it was dark? It felt intimate. I was very aware of him in the tiny storeroom with me. Why was he in here? I asked him, but he didn't seem to have an answer. I heard a rustle of clothes that might have been a shrug.

"We should go back out, in case Kyungsoo wakes up," I said, moving towards the door and walking straight into him. He was far more solid than he looked, broader than I realised. I only noticed now because he caught me around the waist when I walked into him and I was holding his shoulders. We stood there for seconds that felt like longer and then he pulled me closer against him in the dark. His fingers pressed lightly into my sides and I inhaled shakily.

"Is this okay?" he said in a low voice. He was inches from me in the dark. I didn't answer because I didn't trust myself to speak. I reached up and touched the side of his face lightly. When he leaned down and brushed his lips against mine, it was so light I almost huffed in protest. Instead, I pulled him closer to me and deepened the kiss, pushing my tongue against his. Then he had backed me into the wall of the storeroom, my shoulder blades pressed against the bare concrete.


	10. 1 hour earlier

Minseok sat on the counter behind me, his head on my shoulder, arm around me as I stood, leaning back against him watching the dark street outside. In the last hour, more and more Infected were passing the coffee shop. There was no purpose to their movements. The coffee shop was on a slight slope and they were following the road down towards the river. Kyungsoo seemed to have regained some sense of himself and quietly relayed to us what he had seen at the company building. If he was surprised by Minseok and I emerging from the storage cupboard together, clothes in disarray and me with a damning mark on my neck, he didn't show it. He smiled sadly when he saw us, like he was glad someone was doing something, other than dying.

"There were bodies all over the street outside," he said. "I didn't go in. There was...in the doorway, before the electricity cut off, they must have been lying there for a while, there was blood..." he trailed off.

"Was it... did you recognise people?" I asked carefully. Kyungsoo had tears in his eyes, and he just nodded. Minseok looked like he wanted to ask about people they knew, but he stopped himself. Kyungsoo didn't say much after that. He sat next to Minseok on the counter and leaned against him, head on his shoulder. The arm that Minseok didn't have around me was around Kyungsoo. It was nearly full-dark outside, and without the streetlamps and lights, the street took on a sinister quality. Vague shapes moved around out there. I wondered if they could see us. I got my answer when a fist hammered on the glass and someone began to scream outside.


	11. Half an hour earlier

The two high-school students sat in the booth, eyeing us across the room. They were boys, neither of them older than 16. There was blood on one of their pale-grey uniform blazers. I didn't want to think about what they must have seen today. I brought them some water and backed off when the one who was covered in blood flinched back. I went back to the counter, to Minseok and Kyungsoo, and regarded them from a distance.

"We can't stay here," Minseok said again. He had been saying this for an hour now, and the appearance of the students had made him more insistent. When I let the students through the door, they had quickly relayed their journey from the high school to here, how they had been ditching class and were in a disused classroom when the outbreak in their school happened. They read the news and waited for a while before making a run for it, into the surrounding streets. They saw us through the window, they said, and knew we were safe. Infected didn't stand stock-still. Even so, they were cagey about where they had been for the last twelve hours, and I assumed they were just anxious about talking to strangers. I asked them where they were making for.

"There's an army camp down at the river, I think," the student without the blood on his jacket said. "I read it online before I lost my phone."

"What are they doing there?" Minseok asked, his voice taking on a tinge of hope. The student didn't know, though. He didn't even know where on the Hangang the camp even was.

"They're asking for people to come forward if they're immune. The news said they think some people are immune," one of them said, brandishing his now-dead phone at me. Immunity?

"How do people know they're immune?" I asked.

"Some people don't get infected when they're touched. Or, they get sick but then they recover and don't turn into...those things." He glanced about him nervously. I saw the blood on his jacket, how it stained his collar and must have touched his skin. That was that, then. The boy was immune and was making for an army camp he'd heard about. They retreated to the booth then and didn't say any more.

"This place is really small," one of them kept muttering.

"Where would we go?" I asked Minseok when he suggested we leave again. I was genuinely asking.

"Is there a police station around here?" Kyungsoo asked, then answered himself. "There would be no point. Everyone panicked would go there. It would just be an epicentre." Minseok and I nodded.

"The river?" Minseok suggested. "What the students said, to the army."

"We don't know if it's true. And there's no shelter," I said. We're better staying here tonight. We don't want to be stuck outside in the dark."


	12. 10 minutes earlier

The immune student started acting strange. He got up and began to pace. His friend tried to calm him down, but he wouldn't sit, and Minseok tried to intervene but the student wouldn't let anyone near him.

"I want to leave," he said. "I don't like being here. We're trapped. Why did we come inside?" His expression was wild. He looked like he was going to be sick.

"No one's stopping him," Kyungsoo said to me in a quiet voice. "He could just go. We don't have the right to stop him."

"He's just a kid," I said. "And his friend needs him. He's barely holding together." I nodded towards the booth where the other student had his head in his hands. Minseok was there, patting him on the shoulder. Asking if he was alright. I didn't know what to do. The immune student was pacing the full length of the coffee shop now, back and forth. His hands were wringing, and he kept glancing at the walls. Again, I wondered what he had to go through to find out he was immune.

The door rattled and everyone froze in the dark. There was the barely visible outline of an Infected person at the door, peering in at us. We knew they were Infected because their white eyes were shining. The pacing boy must have drawn their attention. We were all frozen, watching the door. The boy started to move again, but I stepped forward and put my hand on his shoulder.

"Stop moving," I said. "Just... calm down. You can't go anywhere tonight." The boy watched the Infected for a couple of more seconds then shrugged out of my grip.

I lost my balance and that was how it happened. My hand slipped, I reached out, and that was how I killed myself, ultimately. As soon as my skin came in contact with the blood on his collar that was mostly dry by now but not quite, when I squeezed his shirt to keep from falling and found that my hand came away still-damp. That was what did it. My eyes met the boy's in the darkness.

"I'm..." he stared at me in horror, and then screeched, "why did you touch me?!" Then he dropped to his knees. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

It was already dark in the room. I could feel my heart begin to race, breaking out in a cold sweat. I knew from watching them on the street earlier what would happen to someone who was Infected, how fast it took hold. I couldn't go out the door. There was someone there, and I would risk letting them in. I cast about wildly and saw the storeroom. Where Minseok and I had... There was a lock on the outside. They would be safe. I ran for it, stumbling into the wall, and dragging myself through the doorway. It took the others just seconds to figure out what had happened. Kyungsoo and Minseok were running for the storeroom, and the last time I saw Minseok's lovely eyes they were shining in the dark, huge with concern and fear. I slammed the door and shouted at Kyungsoo to lock it behind me. He had been closer to me, and he would want to protect his friend. My vision was going dark. The lock clicked and two bodies slammed into the wood, and I could hear Minseok shouting my name. I could hear Kyungsoo, voice breaking, trying to calm him down.

"I'm sorry," I tried to say, but no sound came out. I could feel bile rising.

This was how I was going to die, on the cold floor of the storeroom in the coffee shop where I work.

I regret that I met him. Today, of all days. I can hear him crying now on the other side of the door. Will he miss me? It's selfish, but my last thought before I drop into unconsciousness is that I hope he does.


End file.
